Thursday, March 31, 2011

Why taking somebody seriously might be the biggest favor you can do for them:

A nine-year old wrote to a favorite TV program asking for help because "I think I no how to make people or animals alive." Their reply didn't ridicule or ignore him. 35 years later, as a professor of rheumatology and tissue engineering, he played a key role in a record-breaking feat of surgery and changed a life.

Says he:

"If [the letter in reply] had shown any hint of ridicule or disbelief I might perhaps never have trained to become a medical scientist or been driven to achieve the impossible dream, and really make a difference to a human being's life. I remember being thrilled at the time to have been taken seriously. Actually, even nowadays I am thrilled when people take my ideas seriously."

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Howard

This site is being retired.
Much of my work will continue to be collected here, but you can find my commentary more reliably at edge & flow or my Sacramento Bee SacConnect site, Quantum Dice. Most of my digital datastream is linked from here. You should also follow me on Twitter here.